What is a herbal?
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The term ‘herbal’ is defined in the Oxford English dictionary as “a book containing the names and descriptions of herbs, or of plants in general, with their properties and virtues”. And yet – it is so much more than a list with descriptive illustrations and text. The earliest herb-lore based on experience and superstition was passed on from generation to generation through oral tradition. As records became written manuscripts and then printed books, the stories of herbs and their medicinal uses have been told, refuted, revised, ridiculed, and persisted through herbals and their remarkable authors.
The Sterling Morton Library in the Morton Arboretum (Lisle, IL) houses a magnificent collection of herbals dating from 1565-1850. Here are their stories.